Finally saw this (Tuesday now apparently you get in and get a regular popcorn, regular drink all for about $10). I gotta admit, I liked it. Quite a bit.

I can definitely pick nits all day with it, but overall I really enjoyed it. Was it fluffy and lacking depth compared to the old Trek? Yeah, I'd agree with that (and it might prove more popular because of it - I wouldn't suggest most of the movie going public is capable of in depth thought).

Did it wreak havoc with the cannon of old-school Trek? Yup, but I thought aside from the general lameness of time travel, they did a good job of explaining away the old school stuff. They did a fine job paying homage to a lot of the old school Trek stuff at the same time though - Spock's emotional conflict, Kirk's sluttiness, Sulu's swordsmanship, Chekov's miserable accent, McCoy's irreverance for things in his way, Scotty's sense of humor (was that an Ugnaught with him?) and Uhura's innate and total hotness. Yow.

Okay. Finally saw it. I honestly don't know what to think about it. It's a weird feeling to realize that a story you followed and cared about is now dead with no hope of continuation and in a sense, never happened.

That said, I would certainly recommend the movie. I'm objective enough to know the difference between what I don't like personally and what works as entertainment for a general audience.

I don't think the last 40 some years are dead and over - I think there's potential to revisit the Original Recipie universe, but I looked at it as this film gave a jolt to a franchise which was dead and over anyway. Either something like this happened - and I might argue the method too - or the franchise lied dormant and forgotten. I really enjoyed the movie, really enjoyed how they brought life back to these characters and put them all back where they should be.

Exactly as Spuffy said... I watch TNG all the time, any time it's on, and I'll forever love it... This is just a new direction. There are, always, alternate realities in Star Trek. For instance, the mirror mirror universe which is in continuation into ST: DS9 for instance. It's gone on just as the ST:TNG universe carried on into the movies...

Likewise, the ALl Good Things universe (the future) carried on, but by Q's meddling, the ST:TNG timeline took a new route where Riker/Worf didn't have a fallout over Troi, and where Picard could maybe avoid his fate with his health due tot he early detection of it... Etc.

ST's copout of time travel, and alternative universes/realities, is bad to many, but to me it opens the ability for retelling the ST universe now somewhat, and going forward with a new series of movies at least.

Remember the multiple Enterprises in the one ST:TNG episode? Or Yesterday's Enterprise?

Too bad Star Wars doesn't have alternate realities. Then we could pretend the prequals never happened.

They made Star Wars prequels?

The alternate reality thing can be over done, and in this case, I think it is. It's always fun to entertain the idea as an aside to the main time line, but when the idea becomes the the main time line, I personally think it's too far. But that's me. And who am I compared to the nearly $200M in ticket sales in three weeks?